The less familiar the basis for your opinions, the more daunting it is to make them intelligible to others. So much context to explain.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @paulg
Gauss and Newton just gave up. Historically, it's a very common response. Creating is easier, and more gratifying, than explaining.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps
I know about Newton, but what happened with Gauss? I.e. what search string should I use to find out more about it?
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Replying to @paulg
Gauss worked for decades without mathematical peers. Jacobi, Abel, and Galois appeared too late: his solitary habits were deeply ingrained.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps
Oh, you mean working alone? Newton did more than that. After getting trolled early on, he stopped even wanting to publish.
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Replying to @paulg
Yes, that's true. And likewise with Gauss. He left vast amounts of work unpublished, mostly because he could imagine no one reading it.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @paulg
But also because it was simply too much work to put so many subtle arcana into a form capable of satisfying his painstaking perfectionism.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @paulg
I recommend Dunnington's biography. Gauss never really recovered from the loss, in childbirth, of Johanna, the one great love of his life.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @paulg
Reading Gauss' letters, in which he reveals his profound love for and happiness with Johanna, and his vast grief at her loss, is agony.
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Replying to @MathPrinceps @paulg
Gauss was a masterful, wrenching poet of soul-searing trauma. As eloquent and poignant as Goethe in THE SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER.
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It is hard to blame Gauss for withdrawing from humanity after the tremendous blow he suffered. He sought succor in the only refuge he knew.
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